


i just want you (for my own)

by CloudCover (RainyForecast)



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Royalty, Christmas, M/M, Modern Royalty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-25 18:16:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17126336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainyForecast/pseuds/CloudCover
Summary: The entire building is decked out for Christmas. Sparkling lights, the rich, glowing reds and greens of masses and masses of poinsettia flowers.It’s not hard to realize what’s going on. It feels like every titled, unmarried man between the ages of 20 and 40 who likes other men is here.Unbelievable. They’re marrying the King off with a fucking Cinderella-style ball.





	i just want you (for my own)

 

 

 

Zhenya doesn’t know why he’s here. And he’s in as foul a mood as he always is when he feels out of his depth. It’s a failing of his, his mother always says. And his jet lag isn’t helping matters.

The Canadian royal palace in Montreal is charming enough, in a New World sort of way. It’s nicer than the crown’s residences in Ottawa, or Toronto, or Vancouver, at least. Not that Zhenya’s been, but he reads magazines like everyone else. Nothing like the gilded opulence of the great houses of Russia, but then Zhenya doesn’t see much of those, either. He’s so far down the convoluted line of succession that nothing short of a national pandemic would see him within a mile of the Russian throne. A no-consequence twig on a distant, distant branch of the royal family, from a backwater corner of the country that Moscow in all her glory and importance forgot.

And yet he’s here, swirling a glass of mulled wine and wishing he’d been able to track down something stronger.

The entire building is decked out for Christmas, the Canadians evidentially doing nothing by halves. Not bad, for North Americans. Sparkling lights, the rich, glowing reds and greens of masses and masses of poinsettia flowers. The food is exquisite and bountiful, the company is rarefied and glittering.

It’s not hard to realize what’s going on. It feels like every titled, unmarried man between the ages of 20 and 40 who likes other men is here.

Unbelievable. They’re marrying the King off with a fucking Cinderella-style ball.

Maybe Zhenya will get a chance to dance with him before his rented town car turns back into a pumpkin.

He knows all about Canada’s young king, everyone does. Crowned unexpectedly at nineteen after the sudden illness and abdication of his father, a decision that rocked the global aristocracy to its core. The weight of the world’s scrutiny on his shoulders ever since. Beloved and hated in turns somehow, despite appearing to be so incredibly dull that Zhenya wonders at his exciting strong feelings in anyone at all.

Handsome enough, that much is true. Everyone goes gaga for a pretty face with a crown above it.

He takes another swing of his wine, feels the ginger and the spices warm his belly.

So. Canada is marrying off their king. Huzzah.

He decides to make the most of what had to have been either desperation or a clerical error, and enjoy himself. Starting with flagging down the one server with the tray of duck pate profiteroles.

 

***

 

The king enters with such little fanfare that only the heightened murmuring of all the voices around him alert Zhenya to his arrival. He’s the same as every time Zhenya’s seen him on tv. A quiet word and a handshake for everyone. Practiced blandness as he smiles, polite and close-mouthed, at whomever’s speaking to him, eyes fixed on their face like they’re the most important person in the room.

Ok, maybe Zhenya gets it, a little. Beautiful. Poised. A calm, settled confidence that’s probably hard-won, if Zhenya’s memory of his shell-shocked baby face during the televised 2007 coronation is anything to go by.

Zhenya watches the king tilt his head and listen gravely as some duke from Monaco or something prattles at him about who knows what. The man reaches forward as if to pluck imaginary lint from the king’s spotless lapels, prompting the giant with an earpiece behind him to loom a little more aggressively.

Zhenya shakes his head, and goes to hunt down some more wine.

 

***

 

Zhenya eats and drinks his fill, and dances a little with a very nice prince from Senegal. He needs a breather eventually though, and starts hunting for a washroom.

He ends up going through a set of doors and turning down a quiet hallway with no decorations. One side is all tall windows, and there’s snow falling thickly outside. He stands there, watching it for a moment, when a noise from further down the hall almost makes him jump.

Fuck. It’s the king, sans bodyguard. Sitting on a bench with his head in his hands, shoulders slumped.

Everything about the dejected picture he makes looks wrong, compared to the professional, controlled image he’d displayed in the other room. Zhenya would have been less surprised of running into him in his underwear, he thinks, then seeing stress and despair written so clearly in every line of his body.

He’s a real person, Zhenya thinks to himself, and looking at him now, he feels ashamed of having thought of him as anything else.

This can’t be pleasant, an evening of diplomacy and inane small talk, faced with the knowledge that your choice of a life partner is not yours to make.

He slips out of the hall, and finds a server to charm out of an entire bottle of wine and a corkscrew. He forgoes hunting down glasses, if he waits too long the king might leave the hall.

He isn’t thinking of anything but helping the poor motherfucker relax a little.

When he eases back into the hall, the king has thankfully not moved. And the plush carpet muffles Zhenya’s steps until he is right in front of the king, close enough to see the signet ring of The Order of Nova Scotia that he wears on his right hand, flashing silver as he rakes his hands through his inky hair.

“You look like you need,” Zhenya says, holding out the bottle, and the king jumps. Zhenya feels his heart sink a little as he watched the facade click back into place. The King straightens and his face goes carefully blank.

“Still have cork in, safe” Zhenya says, and, feeling suddenly a little foolish and terrified, sits a careful distance down the bench and starts to open the bottle.

“Pretty,” he says, jerking his chin at the falling snow. “But hope they don’t cancel my flight.”

“You’re Evgeni Malkin, aren’t you?” the king says quietly. Zhenya’s head jerks up. How the fuck does His Majesty the King of Canada know who the fuck Zhenya is?

“How you know my name?” Zhenya blurts, before the answer occurs to him. “You study all guests, so you can be most Canadian, ask about everybody’s mama, that kind of thing?”

The king actually ducks his head a little. One corner of his lush mouth twitches upward in a half-smile.

“Well. There  _were_  dossiers involved, yeah,” he admits, and Zhenya is a little fascinated by how he sounds just…talking. Accent thicker than it was at the party.

“Hmm. Knew it,” Zhenya teases gently, and pulls the cork free with a pop. He holds the bottle out, fully expecting the king to politely refuse. But the king just looks at him, then at the bottle, and then sighs.

“Fuck it,” he says, and takes it from Zhenya. Zhenya doesn’t know what poleaxes him hardest, the cursing or the strong, elegant curve of his neck as he tilts his head back to take a draft of the wine.

Zhenya takes his own swallow after the king hands the bottle back. “So,” he says, handing it off again. “Was surprised to get invitation. Even more surprised I’m get invited when I come here and see every gay guy from every royal family also here. It’s like party from Cinderella”

The king groans. “It’s…something.”

“You don’t like,” Zhenya says, rather than asks.

“Well, would you?” the king retorts, and the clipped tone makes Zhenya laugh.

“So you do have emotion,” he says, and regrets it when the king’s expression flattens again. “Sorry, should not be rude– know you have to be diplomat all the time. Must be hard.”

The king shrugs. “It’s my responsibility. All of it is. Including–” He takes another swig of wine. “Marrying the most ‘appropriate and strategically advantageous’ person.” He sounds like he’s quoting someone, derisive and forlorn all at once. Zhenya feels something soften and warm inside his chest.

“Strate-gically advan-tageous,” he says, over enunciating the complicated English to try and make the king smile. Zhenya whistles, as if impressed. “Then  _really_  don’t know why the fuck I’m here.”

“You don’t–” the king says, and stops. He looks…hesitant? And a little pinker than the wine warrants. “I’d hoped. After we…”

“We what,” Zhenya says, flummoxed.

“We met before?” the king says, looking up at Zhenya, the soft lighting of the hall lamps making his eyes luminous, more gold than hazel

“When–” Zhenya asks, mind racing. He’s never, to his knowledge, been in the same room as this man before tonight.

The uncertainty on his face and in his voice is heartbreaking. “Sochi? In a club. We- you kissed me.”

“Sochi?” Zhenya stares at him. “Olympics?” The king nods. Zhenya wracks his memories. He’s remember meeting the fucking king of Canada, wouldn't’ he? He’d remember kissing lips like those.

And yet. He knows there’s quite a lot from his time in Sochi that he doesn’t remember. “I’m sorry,” he tells the king. “I don’t remember. Drink a lot, the nights I’m go out that time.”

“Oh,” the king says, looking down at his hands. “I see. Well that would explain why you never–” He doesn’t finish that thought. “I wanted to have some fun for once so I ditched most of my security and went out. You asked me to dance, and we did. You told me I was pretty and you–” his voice cracks. “You kissed me in the hallway by the bathrooms.”

He glances up and flinches at the stunned look on Zhenya’s face. He busies himself with another swallow of wine, inadvisably deep. He coughs a little and wipes his mouth on his sleeve, red wine staining his already unbelievable mouth crimson.

“Shouldn’t have–” Zhenya says, voice hoarse. He hurries to clarify when he sees the king draw in on himself. “Shouldn’t have kissed someone like you in shitty club, by bathroom.”

The king stares out at the falling snow. “I just wanted to feel normal, for once. To be the kind of person who can kiss any handsome man they want in a shitty club bathroom hallway.”

“Handsome?” Zhenya says, heart tripping over itself.

The king looks up at him again, cheeks stained as red as his mouth, now. He’s… Zhenya doesn’t have the words for what he looks like.

“Your Majesty–” he says, and the king shakes his head.

“Please, can you just call me Sid?” he asks, and leans up, and his lips are on Zhenya’s, and he tastes of wine and he–

Oh.

_Oh._

 

***

 

“So,” Zhenya says, some time later. 

He had the reigning monarch of Canada’s thighs straddling his lap, and the reigning monarch of Canada’s arms around his neck. 

“Just ask me because you’re attract, or?”

“No,” Sid says. He regards Zhenya steadily, and Zhenya feels him stroke a thumb against Zhenya’s shoulder. Soft, like he’s not aware that he’s doing it.

“After Sochi, I sort of…had my people find out who you were by checking security tape against credit card receipts. I. I’m not proud of it but I looked you up, learned more about who you were.”

Zhenya feels a little faint, both at the solid warmth of Sid’s waist under his hands and the idea that the _reigning monarch of Canada_ had Google-stalked him.

Said crowned head of state grins crookedly at him, eyes sparkling. “Your Instagram is a lot of fun.”

“Oh my god,” Zhenya groans, thinking about his terrible selfies and obsessive documentation of every animal he gets within twenty feet of. He rests his forehead against Sid’s shoulder so that he doesn’t have to meet his eyes.

Sid laughs softly. “No, I mean it. It was… a lens into what’s important to you.”

Zhenya doesn’t raise his head, and feels his ears and neck go red with embarrassment as Sid continues.

“Your family, your job. Charity. Animals. Kids. It was pretty hard not to crush on you, really hard.”

Zhenya is flustered and that English sentence doesn’t quite scan for him at the moment. “I’m not…” He doesn’t know what to say. He’s not boyfriend material for someone like Sid. His family may have connections to Russian royalty but they’re not jetsetters, not powerful, not influential, not astronomically rich. Wealthy enough that Zhenya’s been able to follow his heart and work for a pittance at a non-profit without worrying about financial security, but still.

“You’re a good man Evgeni Vladimirovich,” Sid says softly, his hand coming up to cradle the back of Zhenya’s head. “I had hoped… “

“For what?” Zhenya asks, summoning the wherewithal to raise his eyes to Sid’s. “Not someone for you, Sid. Can’t even speak English so good. What media say, huh?”

There’s a terrible, broken undercurrent to Sid’s voice when he responds. “I’ve spent my whole fucking life thinking about nothing else and. I just wanted to, for once, in this, do what I wanted.” His eyes widen then, and he moves as if to get up out of Zhenya’s lap. “But if you don’t, of course, it’s an  _incredible_ presumption, I mean—”

“Sid,” Zhenya says quickly, and the use of his given name makes Sid go still. “What you want? You tell me, I’m listen.”

Sid stares at him. “You’re asking me.”

Zhenya nods. “Maybe feel little bit selfish, but feel like it would be crazy to say no, when beautiful guy asks you to, date?” He realizes he’s not sure what Sid is exactly proposing in terms of a relationship. He also realizes he needs to clarify something else, too. “Not just, you’re so hot, you know?”

Sid smiles shyly at that, mostly with his eyes. Zhenya keeps talking. “See on tv, when you do charity or visit places or talk with kids. Can see in your face that it matter to you, not just boring royal job. I’m think you’re good man, too, Sidney Crosby.”

Sid gives him a long, long look, and then leans forward, eyes fierce and hungry.

“Please. Kiss me again.”

“Of course, Your Majesty. “

 

***

 

 

_Two Christmases Later_

 

“Is this our thing, then?” Sid gasps, as Zhenya presses his mouth to Sid’s neck, tugging impatiently at his tuxedo’s bow tie to loosen it and improve his access. “Kissing in back hallways, tasting like booze?”

“Mmmm.” Zhenya moves to Sid’s lips, licking into Sid’s mouth, chasing the taste of champagne. “Make all boring parties much better.”

Sid laughs, and the sound of it, breathless and happy, makes Zhenya want to sink to his knees. “Zhenya, you’re talking about your own wedding reception.”

“Boring,” Zhenya proclaims. “You much, much more interesting.” He shivers as Sid scrapes his fingers through Zhenya’s hair. “Now you mess up, everyone know.”

“We’ve been fooling a grand total of no one since the beginning,” Sid tells him fondly. “And I officially do not give a fuck.”

Zhenya laughs and pulls Sid in to just hold him, wrapping him up tight in his arms with his head tucked in that perfect place right under Zhenya’s chin.

“Shhhh, everyone hear you swear, be most embarrassed. And is good. People know their king is happy, people be happy too.”

Sid hums and snuggles further into Zhenya’s embrace.

“So happy.”

The words are so soft Zhenya almost doesn’t hear them. But he does, and it means he’s obligated to rain kisses on Sid’s hair.

So, so happy.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me as [knifeshoeoreofight](http://knifeshoeoreofight.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr, and as @RainyForecast on Twitter. Come say hi!


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